CAN IN SPACE STATUS AND FUTURE AFTER ECSS-E-ST-50-15C RELEASE

摘要

Nowadays Controller Area Network (CAN) Bus is usedrnmore and more in spacecraft onboard applications. It hasrnalready been successfully used in many missions (ATV,rnSMART-1, MATROSHKA, SSTL Satellites,rnSENTINEL-2 etc.), will soon be the the main onboardrncommunications bus for the EXOMars Mission and inrnwill enable extended capabilities on future EuropeanrnTelecom palatforms.rnCAN Bus provides numerous advantages (robust, lowrncost, low power consumption, European, etc.). Thanksrnto its wide acceptance in the commercial market,rnnumerous development tools are available that supportrnand reduce the cost of all the engineering process, fromrnspecifications and design to the final assembly,rnintegration and tests.rnSince 2009, ESA-ESTEC established an ESA-IndustryrnWorking Group on CAN Bus, in order to identify thernmain issues for its use in space applications and drivernresearch and development. This long process has finallyrnprovided as output an ECSS standard and a set ofrnbuilding blocks that fully enable deployment of CANrnbus for platform and payload use in all classes of spacernmissions.rnThe EXOMars project team has spearheaded thesernefforts, taking as reference the draft guidelines, and hasrntaken into account the particularities of the EXOMarsrnmission requirements, in order to provide a consistentrnmethodology for the development of the multiple unitsrnthat need to interface with the CAN Bus.rnThe selection of CANOpen as preferred higher layerrnprotocol for CAN in space application is due to thernexperience and hindsight developed during this long andrnsometimes not linear process.